Cartography of Housing Studies
Cartography of Housing Studies is a tool designed to help the Department of Architecture at Universidad de los Andes to create a new master program in the field of housing.
We conducted research to create a map that define thematic areas addressed by national and international master’s programs of housing, and developed a deck of cards that rate how relevant and meaningful these approaches are from the perspectives of future students and experts in the field.
I worked as a research assistant for the professor Juan Manuel González. Our role, with another research assistant, was to analyze existing master’s programs, conduct user research, and support the professor in the development of the map and deck.
Director /
Juan Manuel González
Research Assistants /
Valentina Sierra
Camilo Rodríguez
Melissa Ferro
Assistants /
Daniel Rojas
Client /
Universidad de los Andes
Date /
Aug. - Oct. 2019
Map
The map consists of a series of concepts. Each concept stands for an abstract description that encompasses comparable topics addressed by the master’s programs under study.
The location of the concepts in the map was determined by whether they had a focus on production or culture (vertical axis), and if they had a top-down or bottom-up approach (horizontal axis).
Additionally, the concepts were divided into three categories:
Foundations
Practices
Tools
Conceptual grounds
Procedures of participation
Techniques of intervention
Deck of Cards
For each concept, there was an explanatory card with the definition of the concept, a short narrative that illustrates it, related keywords found in the analyzed master’s curriculums, and the level of importance of the concept according to the results of the research process.
The images and narratives were created based on the book House without Hands by John Wood, Friedrich Wilhelm, Edward Smith and George Pearson
Process
Life Stories
We conducted interviews with young architects, young professionals from disciplines related to housing, and experts to understand their perspectives about this subject in Colombia.
To analyze the stories collected from the interviews, we used a version of the methodology Narrative Conversations. This allowed us to understand intrinsic factors such as lessons, motives and wishes, and extrinsic factors like environments, surroundings, and people that had an effect in participants’ life stories and, especially, in their relationships with housing. From this analysis, we assigned five concepts from the maps to each participant that were critical in her or his personal and professional trajectories.
Workshop
We carried a group workshop with the interviewees. They participated in an activity to explore all the concepts that were previously defined and ranked the ones they considered more relevant and meaningful for the development of a future master’s program.
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